Some embodiments described herein relate generally to wireless networks, and, in particular, to systems and methods for providing seamless roaming within a wireless network.
Some known wireless networks, such as a wireless local area network (LAN), include autonomous access points that cannot communicate with each other within the network. In such a network, interruptions in connectivity to the network can occur as a mobile communication device moves out of range of one access point and into the range of another access point. Some other known wireless networks can include communication between access points, but can be limited as to the number of communication devices and access points that can be maintained within the network. For example, in some wireless networks, copies of communication device information used for fast roaming across control domains are stored at all access points in the network. Such a network can be limited by the amount of memory available in the controllers as well as the network control interconnect bandwidth used to maintain communication device authentication keys and other state information current across all of the access points. For example, some known wireless local area networks are limited to about 10,000 access points and about 100,000 communication devices.
Accordingly, a need exists for a system and method that provides improved roaming across multiple control domains within a wireless network that supports large numbers of communication devices.